Topic: news An Anxious Beijing to Departing Expats: “Please Stay, Guests from Far Away.”

I fail to understand this 'laowai evergreen' obviously preferred by many contributors of this forum as it appears again and again. The only explanation I can think of is that majority of these contributors mother language is English and they mostly travelled just to English speaking countries. My job took me to more countries than I would like to and so far my experience is that nearly everywhere the people distinguish between 'locals' and 'others'. There are probably different reasons for doing it in different places but it looks to be very common and widespread phenomenon over all races and nations in the world. Even if the person is not distinguishable by appearance so after opening mouth and having 'foreign' accent you are immediately singled out. I do not say it is good and I do not say it's bad - it just basically happens almost everywhere. But for some strange reason it's interpreted here, in China, as xenophobia and/or racism. I think if the Chinese person in here wants to act as racist so Chinese language offers many more 'appropriate' words to describe foreigner than apparently very neutral word 'laowai' (on top of that word carrying the appreciation part 'lao'). But I still fail to understand what is the problem? If some non Asian likes to settle in China so it's possible. If that person strives hard to learn the language well, understand and appreciate local people values and life approach, so such a person should not have a problem to live here the happy life. If such person wants to become indistinguishable from the locals so it's simply not physically possible (exactly as the Asian will be also for the first glance different in predominantly Caucasian society). Any complaints about this should not be addressed to any person (or nation ...) but to the nature (or appropriate god(s) - everyone personal preference ;) ). But being different does not immediately mean being better or being worse. This especially in China where foreigners are usually facing 'preferential' treatment ... One of my friend is saying: 'You may not be able to influence what the other people say but you may choose the way how you handle it'. In other words you may decide if you feel annoyed by others calling you 'laowai' or if you see it as very normal way of addressing foreigners in China.